2012: The Year in Pictures

The three young women in this photograph are all members of Pussy Riot, a
Russian punk rock band. At first glance they don’t seem like they could pose
a real challenge to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. But when Pussy
Riot staged a spontaneous performance in a Moscow cathedral – a protest,
they said, against the politicisation of the Russian church – they clearly
scared somebody very badly. After an absurdly biased trial, two of the women
in this picture were condemned to two years in a labour camp. Can it be that
the Kremlin actually fears the power of youth pop culture more than anything
else?